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GI returns to see once-stricken daughter walk

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — On Tuesday morning, little Cheyenne Leslie entered the Ocean Medical Center and ran purposefully into the arms of her physical therapist, to the smiles and cheers of staff workers, the girl seemingly unhindered by her arm and leg brace. It was a dress rehearsal of sorts.

A few hours later, the 4-year-old diagnosed with cerebral palsy as an infant — who doctors once said would likely be confined to a wheelchair for life — ran through the airport terminal to greet a mother who has never even seen her child walk.

Cyd Leslie, an Army specialist who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and other posts abroad for the past year and-a-half, has only seen her daughter’s steps on video.

The last time Leslie saw Cheyenne in person, she would take a few tentative steps and stumble.

So to finally see her walking, much less running, is nothing short of a miracle, a taste of everything her little girl will be able to accomplish in life.

For years, 24-year-old Cyd has been hoping “kids don’t tease” Cheyenne and “wondering if she’s going to have a boyfriend.”

But when Cheyenne bounded into her arms Tuesday night, she thought, “I’ll never forget this feeling.”

Stunning diagnosis, stunning progress

At the playground near her home, Cheyenne would watch other children tumble and climb on seesaws and swings, monkey bars and ropes. But it was the slide that captivated her.

“Grandma, why can’t I do that?” she said, watching the children navigate up to the dizzying descent of the slide.

It broke Grandma Dominga Leslie’s heart.

“Someday you will,” she told her.

Doctors offered little hope when Cheyenne began having seizures at only a few weeks old. Soon she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Doctors said she might never walk or talk; they would just have to wait and see.

Mother and grandmother were stunned by the diagnosis. Cyd couldn’t speak for an hour.

“I looked at her and said, ‘I know what the doctors say, but we believe in God and miracles do happen,’” Grandma Leslie said.

Dominga Leslie, who cares for Cheyenne and her sister, 2-year-old Niome, while their mother was overseas, has been praying for a miracle since Cheyenne was diagnosed. By chance she found Therapies 4 Kids, an intensive physical therapy program.

The waiting room is filled with hopeful parents from France, Italy and the U.S., all marking small victories together. The first time Maria lifts her head. Matteo’s first crawls. When 17-year-old Georgia says ‘mother’ for the first time in over a decade.

And certainly, little Cheyenne’s first steps.

During the intensive program, four hours a day, five days a week, Cheyenne reaches for bean bags to strengthen her right arm, balances on one leg, stabilized by pulleys in the “spider cage,” and practices with a speech therapist. The rest of the year, Cheyenne works with her therapist, “Miss Sheryl” a few times a week.

The victories were small at first. Around the house, Grandma Leslie noticed Cheyenne using the furniture to pull herself up to a standing position and taking a few steps.

During a party at a friend’s house, a few months after starting therapy, Cheyenne sat and watched as the other children ran and played. Suddenly, Cheyenne was standing, taking five or six determined steps toward the children.

“She’s walking. She’s walking,” Grandma Leslie yelled.

“We just started screaming and crying and jumping up down,” she said. “It was awesome.”

Soon Cheyenne, a lithe girl with black braids and pierced ears, was climbing into her car seat by herself. By October she was running to greet her grandmother when she picked her up from school.

Her speech is improving too.

Now when she sees an airplane overhead, she points and says, “Airplane, bring my mommy home.”

Minutes before Cyd Leslie’s plane touched down Tuesday night, Cheyenne practiced her jumping and squealed, “Mommy’s coming. Mommy’s coming.”

For Cyd to finally see her steps in real life, to hold and touch her, “it’s breathtaking,” she said, dressed in Army fatigues.

The last time Cyd saw Cheyenne, “she was walking with assistance. She was falling everywhere,” she said watching her daughter run through the terminal. “I never thought I’d see it.”

Leslie is home for a two-week Christmas break and will report back to Germany for a few months before she is reunited permanently with her daughters. Her first plans for her now very active daughter — a trip to Disney World.

It’s taken more than 200 hours of intensive physical therapy over the years for Cheyenne to learn to walk, run and climb the steps to the slide.

“Now she wants to go to the park every day,” her grandma laughs.

With insurance only paying for a fraction of physical therapy, it’s much harder to make significant progress with children with neurological disabilities, says Eileen de Oliveira, the center’s president.

Her son Lucas, who also has cerebral palsy, also learned to walk at Therapies 4 Kids. She and her husband later bought the facility and expanded it to locations in New York, Miami, even Bahrain. The children come for weeks at a time from all over the world.

The therapy is costly, but de Oliveira says no child is ever turned away. She started a nonprofit, Bright Steps Forward, which raises funds for the kids who can’t afford to pay.

Cheyenne’s family never had to pay a penny.

On Tuesday, de Oliveira and a surrogate family of therapists watch Cheyenne as she practices on the tiny blue balance beam and later as she colors a ‘Welcome Home’ poster for her mom.

They understand the magnitude of her tiny steps into a soldier’s arms.